You’re in the Army Now
A little noticed (by me, anyway) law was enacted by our Legislature last summer, making homeowners responsible for collecting taxes due from non-resident contractors. If you do work with such people, you must deduct five percent of the total bill and send that amount to the tax collector. You must do this for each contractor —a separate deposit for each one—and make additional deposits with each change order. If you don’t, you will be liable for the taxes that your contractor doesn’t pay. I don’t know what it would cost to convince our state legislators to stay home from now on and refrain from enacting further mischief, but it would be worth every penny.
Trusteeships and LLCs
Big ticket houses are often sold by and to trustees to preserve the privacy of the actual owners by keeping their names out of the public record. A new twist in this game is the use of limited liability corporations, or LLCs. These were originally used when investors and builders combine to build a new home and seek to limit their liability in case the project goes south. Recently, however, I’ve noticed that some already existing homes are being sold to such corporations. Does this use of an LLC still preserve the $500,000 tax shelter provided to married couples? I don’t know, and neither did a top lawyer I consulted. Any reader who knows more than I (that would be anyone with a Sixth-grade education) should feel free to enlighten me; you’ll get a credit here and a gold star.
The Circus is Coming!
The owners of 85 Club Road in Riverside have just received approval to raze their existing house and build a 10,700 square foot bungalow. How, you will ask, can these poor folks possibly dream of entertaining in such a modest hovel? Well, they could borrow one of Malcolm Pray’s party tents (Governor Rowland once quipped that, in his next life, he’d like to come back as the guy who rented Mr. Pray his tents; it occurs to me that he may not have to wait that long). Another alternative would be the Riverside Yacht Club, just a stone’s throw away—while it is only a teensy bit larger than this one, it does have a ballroom for five hundred, two dining rooms, two bars and a kitchen with five ovens and four industrial ranges. When our happy home-builders feel cramped, they can load their wheelbarrows with party fixings and toddle down the road to more spacious quarters.
Inventory
There are currently one hundred fifteen homes for sale with asking prices of four million dollars or more (sixty-two of them exceed six million). Seventy homes in that price range sold last year and, even though this past January was quite active, it appears that we have more than enough multi-million dollar homes to meet demand. For a long time.
And Yet
The under two million dollar market is sizzling. Everything and anything in that price range is going, often in bidding wars, at prices that seem, or would have seemed a few months ago, absurd. A half/acre back lot at 222 Riverside Avenue came on the market priced at $1,295,000 and went to sealed bids just a few days later. I’m told that six builders were chasing it. A prefab that was just awful sold for nearly two million dollars within a few weeks of being listed. This one was so bad that several of us took note of the builder’s name so we could be sure never to recommend him to our clients. Didn’t matter. All of this activity is freezing the lower end inventory because people with perfectly nice $850,000 homes are properly appalled at what they can buy for $1,200,000 and are staying put.
Byram
John Bates has a new listing at 59 Nicholas Avenue that I think is a really good value at $589,000. It’s set high on a hill and has a nice yard, full basement, greenhouse, three bedrooms, two baths and even a two car garage, so long as you don’t drive a Ford Excursion. I liked this one very much.
Basking
Herbie Salomon, our traffic cop who has been holding down the Havemeyer Place/Greenwich Avenue intersection practically forever, is down in Aruba for the next three weeks, No one deserves a good thawing more, but I am enjoying the image of him barking at tourists who enter the water without his permission. Go for it, Herb.
Mr. Mustard
Cendant, the owner of Century 21, has just bought Sotheby’s. While Julie Church and Martha Kelly would look good in anything, I wonder how they’ll feel about mustard yellow blazers?
A little noticed (by me, anyway) law was enacted by our Legislature last summer, making homeowners responsible for collecting taxes due from non-resident contractors. If you do work with such people, you must deduct five percent of the total bill and send that amount to the tax collector. You must do this for each contractor —a separate deposit for each one—and make additional deposits with each change order. If you don’t, you will be liable for the taxes that your contractor doesn’t pay. I don’t know what it would cost to convince our state legislators to stay home from now on and refrain from enacting further mischief, but it would be worth every penny.
Trusteeships and LLCs
Big ticket houses are often sold by and to trustees to preserve the privacy of the actual owners by keeping their names out of the public record. A new twist in this game is the use of limited liability corporations, or LLCs. These were originally used when investors and builders combine to build a new home and seek to limit their liability in case the project goes south. Recently, however, I’ve noticed that some already existing homes are being sold to such corporations. Does this use of an LLC still preserve the $500,000 tax shelter provided to married couples? I don’t know, and neither did a top lawyer I consulted. Any reader who knows more than I (that would be anyone with a Sixth-grade education) should feel free to enlighten me; you’ll get a credit here and a gold star.
The Circus is Coming!
The owners of 85 Club Road in Riverside have just received approval to raze their existing house and build a 10,700 square foot bungalow. How, you will ask, can these poor folks possibly dream of entertaining in such a modest hovel? Well, they could borrow one of Malcolm Pray’s party tents (Governor Rowland once quipped that, in his next life, he’d like to come back as the guy who rented Mr. Pray his tents; it occurs to me that he may not have to wait that long). Another alternative would be the Riverside Yacht Club, just a stone’s throw away—while it is only a teensy bit larger than this one, it does have a ballroom for five hundred, two dining rooms, two bars and a kitchen with five ovens and four industrial ranges. When our happy home-builders feel cramped, they can load their wheelbarrows with party fixings and toddle down the road to more spacious quarters.
Inventory
There are currently one hundred fifteen homes for sale with asking prices of four million dollars or more (sixty-two of them exceed six million). Seventy homes in that price range sold last year and, even though this past January was quite active, it appears that we have more than enough multi-million dollar homes to meet demand. For a long time.
And Yet
The under two million dollar market is sizzling. Everything and anything in that price range is going, often in bidding wars, at prices that seem, or would have seemed a few months ago, absurd. A half/acre back lot at 222 Riverside Avenue came on the market priced at $1,295,000 and went to sealed bids just a few days later. I’m told that six builders were chasing it. A prefab that was just awful sold for nearly two million dollars within a few weeks of being listed. This one was so bad that several of us took note of the builder’s name so we could be sure never to recommend him to our clients. Didn’t matter. All of this activity is freezing the lower end inventory because people with perfectly nice $850,000 homes are properly appalled at what they can buy for $1,200,000 and are staying put.
Byram
John Bates has a new listing at 59 Nicholas Avenue that I think is a really good value at $589,000. It’s set high on a hill and has a nice yard, full basement, greenhouse, three bedrooms, two baths and even a two car garage, so long as you don’t drive a Ford Excursion. I liked this one very much.
Basking
Herbie Salomon, our traffic cop who has been holding down the Havemeyer Place/Greenwich Avenue intersection practically forever, is down in Aruba for the next three weeks, No one deserves a good thawing more, but I am enjoying the image of him barking at tourists who enter the water without his permission. Go for it, Herb.
Mr. Mustard
Cendant, the owner of Century 21, has just bought Sotheby’s. While Julie Church and Martha Kelly would look good in anything, I wonder how they’ll feel about mustard yellow blazers?
posted by Chris Fountain at 10:36 AM
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